Time to Bake the Donuts

Baking makes for excellent homeschooling. Ah, the counting! The fractions! The ratios! The logical ordering! The recipe reading! The motor skills! Chemical reactions! Nutritional science!

Um...and deliciousness.

So far, our homeschooling has consisted of a LOT of baking. The girls love to do it, it's madly educational, gives them radical homemaking skillz, and results in actual food that we can actually eat.

In other words...why not?

Will found the recipe for baked donuts in Knead it, Punch it, Bake it! (store-bought with my swagbucks, woot!) and, praise the lord, we actually had all the ingredients on hand!

The dough was easy--although it used up TWO packets of yeast!--we let it rise, then cut out our adorable nesting doll donuts:

FYI: When you bake your donuts, you can make them any shape that you want. Will had herself quite a blast sculpting many magnificent donut sculptures:

You will also note that one of the benefits of baking vegan is that you can taste while you work.

The donuts already look quite nummy as they rise--

--and then bake, but they're going to get nummier. I have three words for you:

Butter. Cinnamon. Sugar:

You dunk 'em, then you douse 'em.

Repeat until plate is sufficiently overloaded:

Consume:

You think they were good, and you're right. Of course they were good. But they weren't just regular good. They were this kind of good:

When you close your eyes as you eat something, then you know that the something that you are eating? It is GOOD.

Big Tool

Like all good Southern women, I spent Sunday morning out on my front porch with my power tools--

--turning fallen branches from that damned silver maple into toys for the babies:

You can check out my tree blocks tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

C is for Cookie

One of my favorite things about homeschooling so far is the luxury of time that we're presented. We have all day and all evening, from waking up to bedtime, to make whatever choices that we want to make. I don't have to plan fun activities around a block of institutional school in the middle of the day, and now that I'm fully stay-at-home, I don't have to plan fun activities around evenings teaching and days grading. We make plenty of sacrifices for this luxury, mind you, PLENTY of sacrifices, but a luxury it does remain, and I appreciate it.

One of the most pleasant aspects of this luxury is my ability to say, when a child comes up to me and requests, for instance, that we make cookies, "Sure thing!" We have time to brainstorm what kind of cookies the child might want to make, time to dig out all our cookbooks and cooking magazines, time to search the web for good recipes. When it turns out that we have none of the ingredients required to make any of the cookie possibilities, we have time to go to the grocery store, even if it is an unscheduled visit. And since we're going to the grocery store, anyway, why don't we just write down all the ingredients that we need for all FOUR of the cookie recipes that looked the yummiest, and that way we can make all of them?

The girls and I have made three kinds of cookies so far this week.

Our chocolate bake-off cookies were inspired by the Great Cookie Bake-Off held by Journey into Unschooling. We made their cookie base, using Ener-G Egg Replacer and canola oil as substitutions, and then we, too, divided up the dough and we, too, went to town:

I believe that I laid out everything from flaxseed to jelly, cashews to coconut:

My cookies had sesame seeds, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. Willow's cookies had jelly, dried fruit, and cocoa. Sydney's cookies had a little of every single ingredient on the table:

They turned out a little on the dry and crumbly side, likely because of my vegan substitutions, but oh, my, they were delicious. Dried fruit in a chocolate cookie? Yum!

These vegan chocolate chip cookies from the Post Punk Kitchen blog were perfect. Delicious. Some of the best chocolate chip cookies ever consumed. They were so quick to make, and so nommy to eat, that I have no photos! Guess I have to make more...

The biggest hit of the parade so far, however, has been the vegan sugar cookies from John&Kristie. I mean, holy cow. I bought karo syrup on account of y'all, and it was totally worth it!

Even with no place to go and nowhere to be, these cookies were still a two-parter because they had to be refrigerated. I went ahead and left the dough in the refrigerator overnight, which may have been too long, because it was a little fiesty to roll out, and I was afraid that the whole business was just going to be too crumbly.

Never fear, however. With a little extra futzing in the transportation department, the girlies and I managed to make all the cut-outs of our dreams and get them safely transferred to the cookie sheet:

But the best fun? The icing! The recipe also includes a recipe for the hands-down BEST icing that I've ever made. Meant to be dipped--

--but also dabbled--

--it was the perfect consistency for decorating and dried nice and stiff and yummy:

And, once again, these cookies are GONE baby gone. Must be time, then for that vegan oatmeal cookie recipe...

Project Runway: Barbie

Since we were already in Indy and all, our Matty got me and the girlies a cheap-o Priceline hotel room (we were utterly miserable there, since there was an actual fire alarm that required actual evacuation in our pajamas, and actual firefighters in full gear, and the girls were hysterical, of course, but that's a different story, isn't it, La Quinta Inn that didn't give us a refund?), and the next day we went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum.

We lurve the Children's Museum, and go quite often. If you go during a school day, NOT a field trip day, and you're a member, it's pretty sweet. The carousel dude didn't even make us get off between rides, there was no waiting at the big marble run, no line at the boat-building, no having to share the wall-mounted T-Rex puzzle with some tourist kid who hasn't done it a million times and will just delay getting it completed in order to hear the big roar, etc. I do find children's museums in general a little annoying because I loathe hyper-parenting ("Okay, Ichabod, now it's your turn! Climb the ladder! No pushing! Let the little girl go up first! Walk, Ichabod! Be careful! Okay, go down the slide now!"), making kids move along before they're done ("Come on, Jackson, let's go see something else! Hey, let's go look at the boats, Jackson! Let's go, Jackson! Jackson, come on! I mean it! One!"), and using your bitchy voice in the gift shop, especially if you tell your kid that you're going to buy them something but then all you do is gripe about what they want.

Even that is quite a bit lessened, however, by going during a school day during the school year, and our time was quite pleasant. And in the afternoon, quite by chance, we walked into a program that is hands-down the best thing that I've done in the Children's Museum so far...

Tell me, friends. How would YOU like to design and then make a real, live Barbie outfit?

We liked it very much.

First, Mr. Grant gave us a lecture on color and fashion and style. Then there was the design portion of the programme:

And during the design portion, Mr. Grant came around and told each person exactly why he loved their design so much. We like compliments, and we liked Mr. Grant.

Then each person picked out the fabric for their Barbie dress, and then we folded the fabric, pinned a real, live, Barbie dress pattern to that fabric, traced around it with tailor's chalk, and cut it out:

The pattern was simple and yet brilliant, and don't worry--I looked and looked and looked at it, and I think I can make up something along those lines for some future at-home Barbie fashion design.

Instead of sewing, we used double-sided tape to put the seams together--again, BRILLIANT!--and little Velcro tabs to make the dress closures wherever we wanted. And, and here's the best part, we put our dresses on LITTLE BARBIE DRESSMAKER'S DUMMIES!!!

I may have been in heaven for a bit.

After we all had our dresses on our dummies and they had been duly admired, Mr. Grant brought out the fabric scraps, and the ribbons, and the beads and bobbles and sequins, and the fabric markers, and the fun truly began:

Both the girls found this last part, especially, to be utterly absorbing. Willow dangled bits of scrap fabrics and ribbons down from the hem of her dress, and Sydney ended up with a ribbon bow on each shoulder of her dress, a ribbon bow in front and back, ribbons drawn all over the other free spaces, and tiny little cut-up bits of ribbon here and there and everywhere.

When the girls were finished, they were both VERY proud of their Barbie dresses:

As well they should be.

Fishing Buddies

Homeschooling at the State Fair is in a league all its own. We covered all the essential subjects on our little mid-week field trip, including:

Foreign Languages

Biology

Ice Cream

Agriculture

Physics

The highlight of the state fair, however, was an experience that Willow has been asking after for literally YEARS:

Willow has been longing to fish.

I feel a little guilty about this, actually, since my people are all avid hobby fishermen, and as child my Papa used to introduce me to his co-workers from Dixie Cup as "my fishing buddy." Oh, I can tell you stories--the time I got a fish hook caught in the back of my head, the time that I mistook the minnow that was my bait for a fish that I'd just caught, the time that I caught the biggest fish in the entire world but Papa pretended to slip and dropped him back into the water because it was a carp and carp make terrible eating.

I haven't fished since I was a child, but it must run in one's blood, because Willow was born longing to fish, and NEVER have I taken her.

At the state fair, however, the Indiana DNR runs a stocked pond, filled with catfish and bluegill, manned by DNR volunteers, whose sole purpose is to give children the experience of fishing.

We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I heartily approved of how child-friendly they made the experience. Instead of a fishing pole with a reel, which requires casting, the children all used fiberglass cane poles, which are vastly more user-friendly. They also used barb-less hooks, which eases the release of the fish and negates the possibility of bloody little incidents like my own childhood barbed-fishhook-in-the-scalp experience.

The volunteers, too, assisted the children at every step:

And they were just as thrilled as the girls were every time they landed a fish, for land a fish they did:

Sydney caught three fish, and although the actual fish business was the part of the process that she was least enthusiastic about, she was a trooper regardless:

Willow, however, could not have been happier about the two fish that she caught:

She was eagerly engaged in every part of the process, from baiting the hook herself to gently lowering her fish back into the water and watching it swim away again:

Will's plans for our future farm have since expanded to include our own fishing pond, also stocked with catfish and bluegill.

And in my mental checklist of the children's dreams and aspirations, I have duly noted--"Willow: Fishing. Goal achieved."

A Fair of the Arts in August

Dinosaurs!

More Dinosaurs!

New Signs!

More New Signs!

Rainbows! And Colored Pencils!

And Buttons!

And More Buttons! On My Favorite Find!

Good Company

And good times.

The next A Fair of the Arts craft fair is the second Saturday in September. Be there, or you know what you're gonna be.

Here's Our Homeschool This Week

This week-ish, we:

had lots of marble races with our newish-to-us garage sale marble maze; spent some time on PBSKids.org (Dinosaur Train, which is mathy/sciencey, is perennially popular); watched a little Cyberchase and read How Big is It? over and over and over again, and requested Hillman's other books from the library because they are GREAT; and played with building toys both familiar and novel. Sydney played a Blue's Clues computer game, pretended that she wanted to work a 500-piece puzzle with me but instead rolled around on the floor in all the pieces and griped at me whenever I stopped working on the puzzle for even a second, and decorated and cut out innumerable paper snowflakes:

Willow asked me to get Crazy Machines from the library again, so I did, and she spent some happy time immersing herself in the wonder of physics:

goofed around a little with some homemade handwriting sheets. Willow still enjoys creating signage, and Sydney wrote out greeting cards to be mailed to beloved and far away family.

continued an obsession with Magic Tree House, occasionally listening to the audiobooks for hours at a time while otherwise occupied; sampled other audiobooks and CD readers now and then; were read to and read to themselves; visited Borders and the library; and watched Martha Speaks. Willow spends the majority of her waking hours reading, alone or in company:

She finshed all the Breyer Stablemates books except for Penny, which is currently in the possession of some other small library patron; read out loud to her sister and the kittens quite often; FINALLY received the Dinosaur Cove book that she'd been waiting for from the library forever (I actually got my librarian friend to purchase more copies of these books for the library--a six-year-old shouldn't have to wait two months for a book), and read it; and received from the library and read all the rest of the Boxcar Children graphic novels.

went to the farmer's market, went on playdates, did a little shopping and a lot of chores, gardened, played on the jungle gym (I just don't look when Willow + cast dangle from the monkey bars), and helped out at the craft fair. Sydney finished up swim class, and earned her certificate this time, so when swim classes start again next summer, she will finally, FINALLY be in Level 2.

watched a few documentaries; played a little Petz (not so much this week, thank GAWD because it's annoying); held a Great Cookie Bake-Off of our own--

--dried flowers in our flower press; watched Dinosaur Train amply (Willow instructed me to mark my planner for the date and time of some sort of Dinosaur Train special episode next week); pored over some of our collection of Smithsonian handbooks--primarily the horse and butterfly handbooks, I believe); attempted to use the laminator (great lessson for the babies on dealing with frustration, that laminator) and played with, cared for, trained, and loved our sweet, sweet foster kittens:

Willow baked her loaves of exemplary French bread, and managed to goof around with our collection of beach rocks and the hose without getting her cast wet, thank goodness.

There was singing, and instrument play. There was Wee Sing.

Sydney and I colored some of an amazing set of coloring greeting cards about the American Revolution, a souvenir purchased in Boston. While doing that we discussed the American Revolution, and how people get dead and what happens to them next, and how come Sydney wasn't a baby during the American Revolution or even growing inside Momma and Momma wasn't even a baby yet, and what Sydney could possibly be doing if she wasn't even a baby yet, and my personal views on war.

picked out quilt fabric for a new I Spy quilt; created our own art and also filled in coloring pages; sewed; made patterns and designs and pictures with Colorforms; and fingerpainted in the front yard:

Willow dug out some Valentine craft kit that I bought at 90%-off who knows when and happily made a Valentine craft. Sydney took advantage of some work that I was doing on the Cricut to request a bunch of cuts, and happily made herself some paper doll mermaids out of the pieces.

And that's how we homeschooled this week!

Next week's goals:

• 
  
  coffee can ice cream
• 
  
  fireworks in the driveway
• 
  
  Indiana State Fair!